The Flying Goblin

Doc Savage (Bantam) #90

by Kenneth Robeson (House Name), Bob Larkin (Cover) (Illustrator)

WHO IS DOC SAVAGE?

To the world at large, Doc Savage is a strange, mysterious figure of glistening bronze skin and golden eyes. To his amazing co-adventurers - the five greatest brains ever assembled in one group - he is a man of superhuman strength and protean genius, whose life is dedicated to the destruction of evil-doers. To his fans he is one of the greatest adventure heroes of all time, whose fantastic exploits are unequalled for hair-raising thrills, breathtaking escapes and blood-curdling excitement.

FLYING HIGH

The Headless Horseman rides again in Sleepy Hollow — this time streaking down the sky with flashing speed causing destruction and horror wherever he lands. Here is a puzzle worthy of the penetrating powers of the MAN OF BRONZE — a deception so devious it would have to be solved on two continents.

Genres: Pulp, Adventure, Science Fiction, Pulp Adventure, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1940

About the author

Kenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular character Doc Savage and later The Avenger. Though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent, there were many others who contributed to the series, including:

William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson

Lester Dent is usually considered to be the creator of Doc Savage. In the 1990s Philip José Farmer wrote a new Doc Savage adventure, but it was published under his own name and not by Robeson. Will Murray has since taken up the pseudonym and continued writing Doc Savage books as Robeson.

All 24 of the original stories featuring The Avenger were written by Paul Ernst, using the Robeson house name. In order to encourage sales Kenneth Robeson was credited on the cover of The Avenger magazine as "the creator of Doc Savage" even though Lester Dent had nothing to do with The Avenger series. In the 1970s, when the series was extended with 12 additional novels, Ron Goulart was hired to become Robeson.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Flying Goblin is a "Doc Savage" novel by Kenneth Robeson. Kenneth Robeson was the house name used by Street and Smith Publications as the author of their popular Doc Savage novels. Though most Doc Savage stories were written by the author Lester Dent, there were many others who contributed to the series, including:
William G. Bogart
Evelyn Coulson
Harold A. Davis
Lawrence Donovan
Alan Hathway
W. Ryerson Johnson
I love reading these old pulp novels from time to time. I recently came across several of them in a used bookstore and snapped them up. I read about 80%+ of the Doc Savage novels when I was a teenager but that was a very long time ago.
In this one, Doc Savage and his men are in the thick of it again. The action is classic Doc Savage, filled with good old fashion adventure and with gadgets that always seem to be there when the hero needs them. You can relax and escape for a little while. A good read in the Doc Savage series.

[Hal Astell · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Lester Dent had increasingly given way to other authors to keep up Doc Savage Magazine's monthly publication schedule, he still wrote the majority of these novels, including four of the first half of 1940, but this marks the beginning of a five-month break for him. William G. Bogart steps in again to knock out two, before tagging in Harold A. Davis for two others and then returning again for a fifth. Dent wrapped up the year with 'The Men Vanished' but that was a long way away at this point and let's see how much we're yearning for him when we get there.

The good news is that this is the best Bogart novel thus far, which means that it's better than four earlier ones. 'World's Fair Goblin' was gimmicky. 'Hex' was underwhelming. 'The Angry Ghost' and 'The Spotted Men' were hyperactive, constantly leaping around from location to location, and this one follows suit, but at least the shifts here are primarily back and forth between a pair of nearby locations, thinking on a grand scale, rather than to every other town on a large map. Eventually it shifts to a more exotic location much further away, as per the traditional template. In other words, we may rack up a lot of air miles here, but we never feel lost.

One location is New York, mostly Doc's 88th HQ with one scene at the waterfront hangar, but also at the Crime College, because that's where we start out. A couple of men creep up to an unnamed building upstate and throw a rock through a third-floor window with a note wrapped around it. It's to tell Birmingham Jones that he's going to be sprung in five minutes. Sure enough, the flying goblin of the title takes out a corner of the building precisely then and Jones is a free man, ready to be a new member of Patrick Valentine's gang.

We learn relatively quickly that this building is Doc's upstate college where his team of doctors do the work needed to cure the crooks he sends them of their criminal tendencies, with that result of turning those crooks into decent, productive members of society. For reasons that fans can happily debate, this process isn't fully working on Jones. It's stripped his memory of all the bad things he's done, and a whole lot more besides, but he still likes to kill people. That makes him a rather unique character, the patient who got away in more ways than one, who now functions capably but is still a little foggy about who he is and how he got there.

The other location is New Jersey, one state away, and we find our way there in the second chapter, accompanying Ham and Monk on a drive into Sleepy Hollow. Yeah, that one. Apparently, an artist named Honey Sanders has seen an apparition of Ichabod Crane, though the bad guys know that it isn't Crane but Oscar, whoever or whatever Oscar is. What matters is that she saw it and that's why Birmingham Jones is being sent to grab her. We find her soon enough, when Ham investigates her cottage on Shady Lane where she paints landscapes, but we have some fun first.

On the drive in, Monk sees something weird whizzing overhead and carving a path through the trees. He thinks it's the Headless Horseman riding a barrel. Ham sees it, too, on its return trip and they crash into a gas station, where Monk has a brawl with the owner. It takes four cops to calm the fight down and the constable, Sandy Gower, will have Monk up before a judge in the morning. And that's why Ham gets a shot at the pretty girl in the story first, because, while she's been missing a while, she's actually hiding out in her house. She knows who Ham is, so they team up and go out to look for trouble. She knows that the flying goblin comes from the Hudson river and she also knows where the men talk.

Of course, they're captured and, in so doing, start a recurring theme. Bogart seems to be happy to get Doc and his men into trouble, demonstrate their prowess by taking multiple men down against serious odds but not quite manage to defeat everyone. Ham takes down two. Later, Monk matches him. Doc, of course, knocks out many more. However, all three are taken in their respective scenes and have to figure out escape. Another recurring theme is the trap, not uncommon in Doc Savage novels, but used rather liberally here by Bogart. It gets to the point where, if anyone tells anyone anything, we promptly assume that it's going to be a trap. And that doesn't help the finalé, which is supposed to be a little more opaque but is really just another trap that Doc sees through.

I wonder what anyone reading this back in July 1940, when this issue of 'Doc Savage Magazine' hit the newsstands, thought of the flying goblin. Even though some of the action unfolds in the exact Sleepy Hollow that Washington Irving used for his famous short story and there are references to it early on, we never buy that there's any supernatural element. Bogart definitely went there in a previous novel, 'Hex', which reached its readers right before Hallowe'en 1939, but he's not fussed here, even though he could easily have followed suit with echoes of 'Hex'.

Today, of course, anyone seeing the flying goblin isn't going to see the Headless Horseman riding a barrel, they're going to see a missile. That may have been a spoiler back in 1940 but we're all going to see it today as early as chapter two and we're never going to doubt it. The fact that we have the benefit of hindsight and the first thing that any of us would think of whenever someone says 1940 is World War II. Something strange is flying through the air and blowing up buildings during a war! What could it possibly be? Even our kids aren't going to think flying goblins.

Now, the sharp-eyed among you will be saying, hang on a minute, Doc Savage is an American hero and the United States hadn't joined the war yet, and you'd be absolutely right. However, that just means that what Bogart does here is particularly interesting. Being English, I think of the war as starting in September 1939 and so, as I've approached that in my Doc Savage runthrough, I've kept my eyes open for mentions of what was going on back in the old world. With a couple of exceptions, the tendency was to not mention it at all, until the point where it seemed ridiculous that it wasn't being mentioned, so started to be mentioned as something happening over there. Action shifted to South America or even deeper into the U.S. rather than get tangled up in something that might backfire, especially when America was being isolationist.

However, Bogart took a giant step towards changing that policy here. The war is first mentioned in chapter one as an analogy when Oscar hits the Crime College. "It sounded as though a part of the war in Europe had suddenly been moved to the wilderness of upstate New York." The aides in play this time are Ham, Monk and Long Tom, so we expect a typical comment at some point; that Renny is in Venezuela supervising construction of a hydroelectric dam and Johnny is digging through the newly found archaelogical site in Outer Mongolia. When it comes, in chapter twelve, it simply says that Renny and Johnny are "somewhere in Europe". In July 1940? People weren't building a lot of dams or excavating archaeological sites in Europe in July 1940. What is Bogart suggesting?

Eventually, he comes clean because Cornelius Duval, owner of a cellulose plant and a paint factory that are blown up by Oscar in New Jersey, has mysteriously done a runner for Europe, and all our major players set out on the Sea Queen, the fastest transatlantic vessel afloat. That's Doc, along with Monk, Ham and Long Tom, plus Honey Sanders, her boyfriend Tod Smith who shows up out of nowhere in chapter thirteen, and even Sandy Gower. Lester Dent and the other names behind the Kenneth Robeson house name have conspicuously avoided the entire continent ever since war was declared, but Bogart promptly decided that that's where we're all going in the traditional second half location shift.

Now, he does take some care to not mention who's actually fighting. Renny and Johnny are at the hotel in Paris that Doc has set up, which is a little awkward because France doesn't appear to be at war in this book, which, let me remind you, was originally in 'Doc Savage Magazine' and dated July 1940. Instead there are only two nations at war and Bogart is careful not to say which. Of course, in hindsight, we know that the Wehrmacht invaded France in May 1940, Paris fell to the Nazis on 14th June and the French signed an armistice with them only eight days later, meaning that when this issue hit newsstands, the Nazis were in the streets and France was a puppet state governed by the Vichy government. It didn't look remotely like what Doc finds when he arrives in Paris.

The action in France takes place near the Swiss border in an area called Breakneck Pass, but only a select few characters are named and they're all Americans who have travelled over for this finalé, whether because they're good guys or bad guys. And, for a change, I'm going to kinda sorta spoil this one. I'm not going to tell you the bad guy is the secret identity of Patrick Valentine, because you can have fun working that out (it isn't hard). What I will provide is the reason that he's doing what he's doing.

He doesn't believe in war. He wants to end the war that's started in Europe. And so he's developed a secret weapon and used it, not just in New York to retrieve Birmingham Jones and New Jersey to threaten Cornelius Duval, but presumably elsewhere in Europe. The result is that those two pesky countries are paying serious attention, because they each think that the other is the one using the secret weapon. "It says here that those two nations that are havin' a war are sure raisin' plenty of hell!" Monk reports from the front cover of the paper on the way to the pass. Honey answers, "It's terrible. All of Europe will be involved shortly!" But no, Patrick Valentine has scared both warring parties into signing a truce. His deception ends the war.

Now, let's look at that with our magical hindsight. What happened in Europe after July 1940? Yeah, we can come up with a whole heck of a lot of stuff that everyone beyond a select group of racists is absolutely convinced shouldn't have happened. We have alternate history novels to allow us to use an undo button, because we can't go back and do that ourselves. Now imagine if some whackjob in July 1940 had figured out a way to end the war, however dubious, however illegal, however morally problematic. What would we think of the dude who shows up and ends him? Yeah, Doc might have looked good to readers at the time but he suddenly doesn't to us reading in the far distant 21st century.

And that, my friends, underlines precisely why 'Doc Savage Magazine' had been so careful to avoid mentioning Europe for the previous year and change. It seemed a bit of a cheat to me, but Bogart trod on a landmine here and he didn't even realise it. Now, I wonder what August 1940's issue will bring.

Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in May 2023:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...

Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/

[Randy D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Flying Goblin was published in the July, 1940 issue of Doc Savage Magazine; once again the “European War” as it was known at the time, and so identified by Lester Dent’s ghost writer, William Bogart, is mentioned in the first chapter. As the story begins, a strange apparition streaks out of the night sky and crashes into the third floor of Doc Savage's secret “college.” Lester’s pinch-hitting author writes in Chapter I, “it sounded as though a part of the war in Europe had suddenly been moved to the wilderness of up-state New York.” 1  

Today, we would recognize this strange “apparition” as a missile carrying an explosive warhead. In fact, later in the story, the narrator/author gives the reader an accurate description of a weapon of war of which we are all too familiar: “the flying thing of death was very close. It was so close over their heads that there was a peculiar burned-ozone smell in the air. So close that they saw the long, cylindrical like object. Those with Doc Savage stared at the hurtling torpedo as it ripped through the mountain pass. It could not have been more than a hundred feet above their heads. The thing appeared to have fins and a tail-like structure.” 2  

The attack occurred because someone wants Birmingham Jones “sprung” from Doc’s secret “college” as the treatment offered there didn’t “take” on this former hired killer; he has lost his memory, but not his crazed desire for killing. It is assumed that Jones would follow orders immediately, without question, thus his premature “release” was ordered by this “someone.”

It appears “something big” is in the works, planned by this “someone,” who is a criminal mastermind by the name of Patrick Valentine; Doc, with part of his crew have found themselves right in the middle of whatever this “something big” is. Everyone has gotten into the adventure except Renny and Johnny, and they’re sure to enter the story at a later date. So, the stage is set for another thrilling Doc Savage adventure. This one begins in the Hudson River Valley around Tarrytown, New York … ironically, where Ichabod Crane searched the countryside for his missing head in Washington Irving's, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Doc and his guys didn’t find Ichabod Crane, but the search for Valentine and the answer to this strange mystery of the flying goblin, or “aerial torpedoes,” (what we know today as guided missiles), led them from the banks of the Hudson River to war-torn Europe where the mystery was solved in the mountains of Switzerland.

However, there is a major blunder in the story; one that is revealed if the reader is up on their history. It seems that The Flying Goblin was written several months before the issuance of the July publishing date of Doc Savage Magazine. Doc lands his plane in Paris, but according to the publishing date of the story, it doesn’t jive with the actual events of the day … the Germans had occupied France since June of 1940, and it is quite obvious that Doc would have had some difficulty in conducting his investigation in occupied France.

I’m sure that Lester’s employer, Street and Smith Publications, allowed this discrepancy to go unchecked because the July issue of Doc Savage Magazine was on the news stands everywhere one month after the occurrence of this historical event. Besides, The Flying Goblin is a five star rendition of one of the leading pulp fiction action heroes of the day … the Man of Bronze … Doc Savage; and the story is what it is … fiction. To correct the story as it pertained to the actual events that occurred in France just before the July issue of Doc Savage Magazine hit the news stands was not necessary given the literary genera of which the story belonged.

With that being said, The Flying Goblin is a fictional story that pertains to the European theater of the Second World War, and the “flying goblin” was a factitious literary prop, meant as the villain’s “secret weapon,” but a quick check of the historical record reveals that Germany did, in fact have a “secret weapon,” which it used against Great Britain; more than 1,100 V1 jet powered cruise missiles, and the more advanced V2 rocket propelled ballistic missiles were launched against Great Britain in June of 1944. These weapons of mass destruction were used in retaliation for the European invasion. Each carried a warhead with a payload carrying 1600 pounds of high explosive with a range of 200 miles. The secret program had been in development beginning in 1936.3

Anyway, Doc and his crew solve the mystery of the flying goblin and dispose of the bad guys, including Valentine, who’s true identity is revealed in the final paragraph of Chapter XVIII. Finally, there was another historical inaccuracy in the story, albeit minor; the author had the two countries that were at war in the story agreeing to a truce, followed by a ceasefire ... in reality, it would be another five years until the “European War” would end. But one character's prediction was spot-on … “It’s terrible. All Europe will be involved shortly!” 4

As with The Evil Gnome, the European war is prominently featured in the latter part of The Flying Goblin; although the war didn’t end quite like the story proclaimed, it was the story’s central theme, and assured The Flying Goblin of a five star rating. *****

 

1.  The Flying Goblin, Chapter I; p. 2

2.  The Flying Goblin, Chapter XVI; p. 53

3.  www.britannica.com/technology/V2-rocket

4.  The Flying Goblin, Chapter XVIII; p. 58

[John Reis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Monk and Ham Brooks, two of Doc Savage’s employees, hear a story about a young woman, named Honey Saunders, who reports seeing some flying object in Sleepy Hollow, New York. Monk and Ham get separated. Ham finds the girl, and they are immediately kidnapped. Doc Savage sees a strange object coming at him while flying his plane to upstate New York. He follows it to a river near Sleepy Hollow. In the meantime, Birmingham Jones, an inmate at Doc Savage’s College escapes.

There is an explosion at a factory in New Jersey. Doc flies there and discovers Ham and Honey are already there. Then there is another explosion at a plant in Long Island. Both plants belong to an industrialist named Duval.

A ship is boarded at sea. Then a cathedral in Paris is bombed.

Savage learns Valentine is behind it all. He captures Jones who tells him Valentine works from a chateau in the Alps. Savage heads there with his team and two others who are flying a plane from France.

This is poorly written. Maybe the writer was foreign?

“Blazes!” Monk piped. “Just lookit that!”

There are repeated references to his “skyscraper building containing his 86th floor headquarters” and Savage’s “bronze skin and golden eyes.” And repeated use of superlatives.

Well, now I have read one of these. One is enough.

[Richard Rogers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean, it's fine.

You know what you're getting when you pick up a Doc Savage book. It's pulp, so it's got action; it's got gadgets; it's got international settings; it's got fights and escapes; it's got cool covers. Sometimes there's a vague supernatural feel about it, sometimes there's SF-like futuristic technology, and other times it's more like a detective novel. But you gotta keep your expectations in check, because it's light on character and pretty light on plot. Mostly action.

That's all right. Still fun. Kinda.

This one is about a jailbreak and an advanced kind of rocket (the "goblin" of the title) being used for some unknown purpose, leading us from Sleepy Hollow to an ocean liner to a hidden lair in Switzerland. It works. It does the job.

TBH, I never really like a Doc Savage book, but I don't mean that as criticism. It's fine--nice for a change once in a while. It's more vibes for me than fun, so I pick one up every year or so.

Good news is I've still got about 150 of them left to read, so I'll never run out at this pace.

Recommended for readers of pulp.

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of cheesy sci-fi, I had fun taking a spin through this horribly written book. So BAD! Apparently Doc Savage has a fan base, and I can understand that because I love Doctor Who. This book is not nearly as well conceived at Doctor Who, yet I couldn't turn away. For that, it earned more than one star. The author never even tries to sound like he knows the science behind any device or event or thing in this whole story. I kept waiting for the characters to call the hobgoblin "thing" what it actually was and they never did! Even Doc Savage referred to the "thing" after he named it about 3 pages from the end. There were two countries at war and they never named the countries but instead referred to them as "those two countries at war" many times through out the book. The character Monk is always the hairy chemist. Duval is always said to be a millionaire whenever his name is mentioned. Honey Sanders...yes we get it, she's pretty...just stop! There were hundreds of examples that I wanted to put into this review for laughs! There are 89 stories before this one?? OMG!

[Dennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun romp of a story. Most of the action takes place in New York State before moving across the Atlantic Ocean and concluding in France.

The story takes a spin off of the Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow. It begins with Monk and Ham arrive in Sleepy Hollow in search of a missing Honey Sanders only to drive into trouble. Literally. A shrieking menace is causing explosions, damage and death.

Doc is assisted by Long Tom, Ham and Monk. Renny and Little John meet up in France. For once none of the pets are in this novel. A bit of a relief for me.

Written by Howard G Bogart & Lester Dent July, 1940.

[Michael Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Standard Doc Savage fare written in 1940 by William G Bogart. Things are being blown up, seemingly by a goblin riding a barrel at breakneck speed. Ham and Monk investigate and meet a pretty girl. They are trapped and escape. Doc narrowly misses being blown up and is captured, but not for long. There is of course the mystery villain too, who is blowing places up.
All is finally revealed as the good guys escape a death trap and the mystery villain does not.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty cohesive story for one of the ghostwritten Doc Savage novels, this one actually penned by William Bogart. This cover isn't a eye-catching as the one used for the Bantam reprint, which emphasized the "otherworldly" appearance of the "flying goblin" and tied in to the Sleepy Hollow locale and Washington Irving's Headless Horseman.

[Jeff J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A pulp novel featuring Doc Savage. A headless horseman takes to flight to terrorize Sleepy Hollow. Much chaos ensues.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first Doc Savage story appeared in 1933 and the series ran in pulp and later digest format into 1949. Bantam reprinted the entire series in paperback with wonderful, iconic covers starting in the 1960's. Doc was arguably the first great modern superhero with a rich background, continuity, and mythos. The characterizations were far richer than was common for the pulps; his five associates and their sometimes-auxiliary, Doc's cousin Pat, and the pets Chemistry and Habeas Corpus, all had very distinctive characteristics and their byplay was frequently more entertaining that the current adventure-of-the-month. The settings were also fascinating: Doc's Fortress of Solitude, the Hidalgo Trading Company (which served as a front for his armada of vehicles), and especially the mysterious 86th floor headquarters all became familiar haunts to the reader, and the far-flung adventures took the intrepid band to exotic and richly-described locations all over the world. The adventures were always fast-paced and exciting, from the early apocalyptic world-saving extravaganzas of the early days to the latter scientific-detective style shorter works of the post-World War Two years. There were always a few points that it was difficult to believe along the way, but there were always more ups than downs, and there was never, ever a dull moment. The Doc Savage books have always been my favorite entertainments... I was always, as Johnny would say, superamalgamated!

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mysterious flying weapon smashes Doc's crime college (where he "cures" crooks he catches via brain surgery) to let one triggerman bust free. Meanwhile, Ham and Monk investigate a similar flying thing in the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. This one (by William Bogart) is fun until you get to the end and see it doesn't make much sense. Like having Doc and Co. show up in France and Bogart writing as if it were still at peace (this is 1940, WW II's been on for a while). And what exactly did the crooks gain by busting such an unremarkable thug out of the college? Disappointing.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I generally like Doc Savage novels and this one was no exception. Originally published in 1940, this is the pulp era and of course these books can only really be appreciated in that light. This time Doc and his crew take on mysterious flying thingies that cause death and destruction wherever they land. The mystery of just what they are and who is behind them takes them to upsate New York as well as to Europe and the Alps before the mystery is solved. Pat Savage is not in this one but all of Doc's five main associates do make an appearance which is a treat because that doesn't always happen in the later part of the series.

[Little Timmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the pulp era heroes few stand out above the crowd, Doc Savage is one of these. With his 5 aides and cousin he adventures across the world. Fighting weird menaces, master criminals and evil scientists Doc and the Fab 5 never let you down for a great read. These stories have all you need; fast paced action, weird mystery, and some humor as the aides spat with each other. My highest recommendation.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

read some time in 1985